Salmond makes strongest case for independence yet - by demanding the best bits of the UK

Under proposals from the SNP in Scotland (hence the S), Scotland would get 9% of the UK – including ice cream vans, babies, human waste and as many shiny things as Britons can fit in an envelope.

Alex Salmond was expected to tell Scotsfolk that things were just fine in Scotland, but instead revealed that an independent Scotland would be a more condensed, colder version of the UK.

“I can’t wait to get 9% of kiddies piggy-banks,” said the First Minister

The UK Government responded to the demands by not responding at all – a trick they picked up from the SNP themselves.

If Scots vote for independence, then Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond will travel up and down the UK picking up 9% of possessions from households. One resident of London had this to say:

“I’m happy for that strange man to come into my home and take a few things – as long as he takes away some of the rats under my shed.”

Asked if he would be writing his wish list to Santa, Salmond said, “Santa is a Unionist Tory, so no.”

Pressed for more answers, Salmond then recited some Robert Burns, talked about the oil he ate for breakfast then pretended to get a funny text and left the room.

Jessie J's New Utopia

Jessie J (pop star, future icon, blathering imbecile) is either the most cynical woman in the world or blurring the boundary between idealism and idiocy to previously unfathomable levels. She sings a jaunty, happy sounding song called 'Price Tag' which Wikipedia helpfully informs us:

"is about Jessie J trying to make the world dance by forgetting about how much money we have."

It's a call to arms for the entire world to stop concentrating on material goods and just simply to let the love in. Then we'd all feel better, and everything would be fine. Essentially it's a Disney version of 'Imagine' by John Lennon, where someone who has more money than us tells us we should probably give up all our possessions.

John Lennon, incidentally, wasn't a very nice man. He wrote some very, very good songs ('Imagine' wasn't one of them), but he was also a bell-end who got shot at precisely the right point in his life to maintain his legacy. Seriously, if he'd released any more increasingly-pish solo albums he'd probably have been so bereft of critical acclaim that he'd have sprinted right onto the stage at Live Aid to help Paul McCartney. It doesn't help that all that was truly great about the man has been diluted through a series of over-adulating pricks who revere all things at the Church of Lennon while simultaneously missing most of the points he made and misrepresenting him horribly.

Jessie J, meanwhile, is no John Lennon. Not even John Lennon on a really bad day when he was recording himself shitting through a colander onto a bean bag with extra reverb. Jessie J's previous career was writing songs for smiley-Queen-of-pre-reality-check-dawning-tweenager Miley Cyrus. And Chris Brown. I don't think I've ever heard a Chris Brown song, but I do know that he and Charlie Sheen should be rohyphonoled, made up in drag, and then locked in a room together until they finish beating each other up, probably some time around 2014.

The label Jessie's album is out on is Universal Music. It's fair to say they're probably not the most relaxed label when it comes to distribution of their music. Then again, Jessie J is stating over and over again in 'Price Tag' that we shouldn't care about the money, just to get the world healed and having a good time together as one.

'Price Tag' is 79p to download on Amazon. Or you can buy the whole single package for £3.99, or the album for £7.00.

Obviously if we are to stop caring about the money and dance around for a bit, we're going to have to strut our stuff to a different song. One that is, y'know, free. Because if material possessions aren't important and the whole world needs to hear Jessie's message then logically none of her songs shouldn't be available for free upon request from either herself or her label. That or her song doesn't really mean anything and is a hollow and vacuous, if jaunty, piece of inane babble. When you listen to a song by Lady Gaga you don't generally think 'Oh, this is an interesting point about society she's making', you think, 'Hmm, this would be really good if it didn't go on for about twelve minutes and she wasn't such a massive attention whore'. But crucially her songs don't generally wear their earnestness and idealism on their sleeves. They're simply catchy, silly playground chants that you can dance to, with a hint of underlying meaning that's there if you want it.

Jessie J is claiming that she wants to make the world a better place. Oh really, Jessie? Well, let's go out to Somalia shall we and see how well they react to their message there. Have they heard your song? No. They don't have 79p to download it from Amazon. They don't even have an Amazon account. You could hum it for them I suppose. Yes! That's working! Look at them dance! Look at them - oh, wait, no, that was just the death throes of an infant born with HIV. Sorry. False alarm.

I suppose if we hadn't bought your album we could've given the money to charity or something, but then if we hadn't bought your album how would we know about all the bad things in the world? It's a tough decision. Really, for the good of mankind, it's essential that you download Jessie J's album right now and learn its message about the futility of capitalism even though you know for a fact that a child's internal organs have just collapsed in the Third World as a direct result of this never-ending cycle of hypocrisy. Because if you save a child's life today it'll still die in a harsh and unforgiving world where people aren't singing and dancing and having fun but instead are buying shit albums made by people detached from reality who appear to have written songs specifically to be played at school discos.

In Jessie J world the fact that, apart from money, we're all still human beings and that is a new and vital discovery. Presumably she was brought up in a very 'Britain for the British' household where it was forbidden to spend money on foreign aid projects while there were still problems in Britain because apparently 'Britain' is a place where we lack the most basic fucking compassion.

Or possibly Jessie J knows that her message is complete bollocks, but that it'll chime perfectly with a young un's idealistic streak about how the world is shit and stuff an' we should all totally get together and fix it.

Right after we've worked out a dance routine to the new Keisha single.

Bruno Mars is a Pranny

Bruno Mars, as you may know, is riding high in the charts through the medium of purveying relatively catchy songs and looking like the halfway point between JLS and Michael Jackson.

He has co-written for the great ('Fuck You' by Cee Lo Green) and Kesha. Remember the South African World Cup song? He helped with that. The man, like a goth fish, obviously knows his way around a hook.

Unfortunately, he is also a bell-end.

I am basing this entirely around two things:

1. His lyrics.

2. The fact that he chose his stage name for the following reason: "I felt like I didn't have [any] pizzazz, and a lot of girls say I’m out of this world, so I was like I guess I'm from Mars."

See? Bell-end. Not content with offering the smuggest of smug reasons and looking like his smug fedora is only on his thumb-like head to contain all the smuggery, Enceladus - the sixth largest Moon of Saturn - is the most likely place in our Solar System that might support life, YOU TWAT. Imagine not knowing that.

Anyway. His lyrics.

They're utter bollocks.

Imagine a bollock, just hanging there, chilling (to the extent that a bollock can chill), minding its own business. Then imagine an entire wind tunnel full of bollocks, all contorted in such a way that the shrivelled skin forms a tiny, screaming face. IN STEREO.

That's how bollocks Bruno Mars lyrics are. Let's go into detail. From 'Grenade':

'Should of known you was trouble from the first kiss.'

ME AM NO GUD GRAMMUR YUH?

He follows up this illiterate mung-storm with:

'Why were they open?'

Don't snigger. This is a serious dissection of culture. And also begs the question, 'If it's such a big deal, why were yours open too Bruno? HMMMM?'

He continues:

'Gave you all I had/And you tossed it in the trash'

Then:

'You tossed it in the trash, you did.'

Just in case we weren't sure. Bruno appears to be haplessly devoted to someone who is not reciprocating. OH WOE.

'I’d catch a grenade for ya (yeah, yeah, yeah)/Throw my hand on a blade for ya (yeah, yeah, yeah).'

This is the chorus. It's nowhere near as catchy as I was expecting. I was promised the catchiest substance known to man when this song was described to me. I was thinking catchy like syphilis or the plague, but no. It's about as catchy as AIDs. You might find it catchy by accident, but it's also highly possible that you might have to be rather careless.

Also, I'm curious as to the veracity of Mars' statements. He's prone to hyperbole you see, and of not giving us the full picture. This grenade f'rinstance, is it live? If it's not live then catching it is no biggie, and if it is just chuck it back. You've played Call of Duty right Bruno? You should, it's well good. All sorts of limbs flying all over the place, people throwing their hands on blades, etc. Yes, you did just imply you would throw your severed hand onto a knife. Is it the knife you used to remove said hand? To give to your loved one? To ask her to plant it so lots of little You might grow? That's scary Bruno Mars, that's just plain scary. At least you wouldn't jump in front of a train for her.

'I’d jump in front of a train for ya (yeah, yeah , yeah)'.

Oh.

'You know I'd do anything for ya (yeah, yeah, yeah)'.

Bruno, are you actually mentally well? Is this song actually about a form of insanity brought on by unrequited love? Because if it is, the tune is slightly too jaunty. And do you know what Bruno, the following lyric is not romantic:

'When I see your face/There's not a thing that I would change '

That's not as good as you think it is, Bruno. Most men do not lie awake at night looking at their partner's faces and going over them with a felt tip to save time when they awake in a plastic surgeon's theatre, as you give them the thumbs up before they go under again. No-one in the history of romance has ever uttered the words 'I love you but I want to change your face'.

Still, looking forward to the Biffy Clyro cover of that song. Maybe they'll do it in the style of their early stuff. Y'know. WHEN THEY WERE GOOD.

The Yoker Ferry

Charlie Sheen TigerBloodIntern Round 3 Application - By Chris Jones

via youtube.com

Gotta Get Down On Friday

For those as yet unfamiliar with13 year old Rebecca Black, a summary: she is an American child-woman who has been doing her level best to rip the internet asunder over the past week with her controversial debut single, Friday.

And what is so controversial about the song?  Does it contain overtones of Lolita that right-thinking people will find disturbing?  No.  Is it full of bad sweary words, as part of a misguided attempt to emulate Chloe Moritz in Kickass?  There are not. 

In actual fact, the only problem seems to be that she’s had the audacity to sound exactly the way you’d expect a 13-year-old girl to sound - inarticulate, excitable, and rather dull.

The song details the minutiae of a typical tween’s Friday in mind bogglingly boring detail.  Rebecca, just so you know, goes downstairs (OMG, I’ve been downstairs!), has some cereal (breakfast is the most important meal of the day), and goes outside to wait for the bus.  So far, so not really worth making a song about.  But on the other hand, they do say you should write what you know.

The video takes a slightly odd turn at this stage when our heroine – who you may remember is waiting for a bus – is approached by a sports car full of her pre-pubescent friends.  This creates a problem of two halves.

As Rebecca sees it, the most contentious issue here is which seat to choose (although given the other four are taken it pretty much has to be in the middle at the back).  But surely a more pressing concern is that fact that the combined age of everyone in the vehicle still doesn’t give you one adult old enough to have a driving license?  There must be a lot of road accidents in the US.

Having solved the problem (by sitting in the middle at the back, not by locating a responsible grown up to give them a lift), Rebecca goes on to inform us: “Yesterday was Thursday, today is Friday […] Tomorrow is Saturday, and Sunday, comes afterwards.”

I could go on, but you get the gist.  It’d be fair to say that the track has all the lyrical depth of a minor coffee spillage.  But whilst it’s OK for the likes of super-fetus Justin Bieber to spout crap like this (lest we forget, his best contribution to world music goes ‘baby, baby, baby… oh!’), Rebecca Black gets 316,880 ‘dislikes’ on youtube and a bajillion comments saying stuff like “stupid spoild lil whore, die!” and “i think my spleen just ruptured.”

And to add insult to injury, Simon Cowell has been quoted as saying she’s a genius.  Remember Simon Cowell?  He was the one responsible for Zig and Zag.  The fact he thinks he can market something does not mean it’ll be remembered fondly by popular culture.

Can anyone remember what people did in the times before we could spend our evenings spewing vitriol at young kids on the internet?  Answers on a postcard, please.

Although I don't know where you'll find one of those in this day and age.

iPhone Self Destruct